Causality
by SteampunkSherlock
Summary: When the Gateway Command malfunctions during an experiment, Bob, Kevin, and Enzo are sent back in time and accidentally spawn an alternate timeline!
1. Chapter 1

Part I

 _"_ _The only reason for time is so that things don't happen all at once."_ – Albert Einstein

Kevin Sawyer awoke in his Mainframe apartment for the first time. Was it early morning or the afternoon? He could not tell. He had given up trying to understand how time worked in this place. He rolled out of bed, deactivating the energy covers. He felt refreshed now, having spent many of the previous seconds working on the new experiment. It had been a month (at least in human perspective) since the incident in the OmniCron system. Life in Mainframe had returned to its normal processes.

Sawyer left his bedroom and entered the hallway, making a right and entering the living room/kitchenette/dinette. He activated the vidwindow and was greeted by Mike the TV giving his morning newscast. He went to the kitchen and began making his usual breakfast: peanut butter toast sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and coffee.

Dot had been gracious when she arranged the place for him. It was nice, fit his living needs for his occasional stays in Mainframe, and it had a fantastic view of the Principal Office from the patio. The toast popped up out of the toaster just as a call came through. It was from Welman. Sawyer opened the link and the nullbot's image replaced Mike's broadcast.

"Sleep well?" asked Welman.

"I did, thanks," Kevin replied. "How did you sleep? Or did you at all? When I left yesterday you were still working."

"One of the benefits of having a fusion-powered suit is that you don't need frequent rest," said Welman. "The boys down in Hugh's lab have just finished compiling the radiation gun."

"That's fantastic," Sawyer said as he smeared peanut butter on his toast. "We can start the experiment today then."

"My thoughts exactly. I'm sure I can get it cleared with Dot."

Mainframe's was overly cautious when it came to projects concerning her father's invention, the infamous Gateway Command. Although the Twin City disaster was technically an accident, Welman still carried a silent burden, and it grieved him that his life's work had seemingly been in vain. Kevin supposed he saw these new projects as a way to redeem himself. The fact that it could bridge the gap between the physical universe and the virtual universe showed it held more potential than Welman had ever imagined.

"It's a pretty harmless project," Kevin said. "I'm sure she'll give the go-ahead."

He sprinkled a spoonful of cinnamon sugar over his toast and took a bite from the first piece. Mainframe had other foods besides energy shakes: vegetables and meats similar to what was found in Kevin's universe. In truth, the peanut butter Kevin was eating with his toast was not made from peanuts as he knew them, but from a virtual equivalent. As far as he was concerned, though, he was munching on Jiff. The same went for the bread, the sugar, and the coffee. Although they tasted like the "real thing," they had almost nothing chemically in common with the foods of Kevin's home universe.

"I'll be over there in about a half-millisecond," Kevin said. "Don't start without me."

"Never." The image of Professor Matrix vanished and Mike the TV reappeared.

Hastily, Sawyer finished his breakfast, showered, and dressed. It always fascinated him that sprites had a repetitive state of dress. Their icons could hold several style formats which could be booted into at any moment, so they had no need for places to store clothing. Since he had no icon, he could not boot into a preinstalled wardrobe. Therefore, special accommodations had to be made for him. A chifforobe was constructed for his convenience which contained a week's worth of clothing.

Dot had also been kind enough to make sure he was supplied with the latest trends. He decided on a pair of charcoal gray slacks, a green turtleneck, and his personal favorite item, the leather Norfolk jacket. He was outside and airborne a few microseconds later, gliding along the skyways on a zip-board. It was a skill he had finally mastered after hours of repetitive tries and failures.

He approached the P.O. and guided himself in for a soft landing. As he approached the entrance, Kevin thought he saw movement out of the corner of his left eye. By the time he turned and looked, Mike and his camera crew were already upon him.

"This is Mike the TV live outside the Principal Office with Dr. Kevin Sawyer." The squat newscaster turned from the camera to Sawyer. "Dr. Sawyer, what can you tell us about your work with Professor Welman Matrix? Does it have something to do with a new initiative concerning another Gateway Command experiment?" He raised his hand microphone up to Kevin, waiting for a reply.

At first Sawyer was beside himself. He stood there trying to find the words, but he was not sure what to say. "Uh... how did you find out about this?" he asked. It was the biggest question on his mind at the moment.

"The doctor has no comment," came Phong's voice. The old sprite approached the group from out of the main hall, stopping next to Kevin. "The new Gateway Command project has taken every precaution to ensure all possible accidents are avoided. The man before you has been working with Professor Matrix in this regard."

"But what does a viral expert have to do with a new Gateway Command experiment?" Mike asked.

"Plenty," Phong said, his patience obviously wearing thin. "Now, if you will excuse us."

Phong and Kevin retreated into the building, leaving Mike and his crew behind.

"There you have it. Who is the mysterious Dr. Sawyer, and what is his role in the new Gateway experiment? These questions and more will be asked next time. Until then, this is Mike the TV signing off! And now, a word from our sponsor."

When the doors closed behind them, Sawyer said, "Thanks for coming to my rescue. He just snuck up on me."

"Mike tends to do that," said Phong. "When he thinks he sees a story he acts more random than usual."

"He's got a point. I'm supposed to be a virologist form the Supercomputer. It seems odd that I'd be part of a teleportation experiment."

Kevin's cover while staying in Mainframe was a civilian viral specialist sent by the Guardian Collective. He and Bob had come up with the idea during his first stay in the system. People had not questioned it, and it explained why he was needed at the Principal Office so much. On the whole, though, people did not really notice Kevin Sawyer.

"Mike believes he has found something unusual, but he will eventually abandon it," Phong explained. "I would not worry. Welman tells me you are ready to conduct your little test."

"Hugh's team downstairs got the radiation gun going last second. We're really eager to go ahead with our plan."

"Dot may have a problem with that. The Gateway makes her uneasy."

 _Considering what happened to Mainframe's Twin City I can't say I blame her_ , Kevin thought.

* * *

Dot grabbed her cup of java off the counter and left her apartment. She rode the elevator down to the lobby. When she stepped out she was greeted by a smiling Bob.

"Hey," he said. "Ready to go?"

Dot came up and looped her arm through his. "As long as you promise me your car won't stall on the way there."

The couple walked out of the lobby of the North Baudway Tower and toward Bob's 262 convertible.

"I've taken care of everything. I think I've finally got all the gremlins worked out."

Dot giggled. "Yea, right. You've had that car for hours and you've never been able to keep it running for more than milliseconds at a time. Even the upgrade didn't work."

"Oh ye of little faith," replied the Guardian smugly.

Dot rolled her eyes. Bob opened the door for her, the giving him a courteous thank you as if she were a duchess and he the lowly chauffeur. Soon they were in the air, the car apparently running smoothly. Dot did not say a word because she was afraid of jinxing it.

"Dad gave me a call before I left," she said instead. "He wants to test this new theory today."

"Uh-huh," Bob said. "And that makes you uncomfortable?"

"I have my reservations. The last time anyone fiddled with that thing a city was destroyed."

"It also helped save the Net," Bob reminded. "Your dad's had plenty of time to make improvements, so it's not like what happened last time can happen again." Dot remained silent. "So are you going to let him do it?"

She sighed and said, "He's my father, Bob. It'd break his heart if I said no. Besides, he really wants to see his invention work for real. I've got to give him a chance."

"From what Kevin tells me it's a pretty harmless experiment," Bob said. "If it'll make you feel better I'll stay in the Core Room and make sure nothing bad happens."

She smiled slightly. "Thanks."

Deep in her gut, though, she remained uneasy. She never liked the Gateway Command, and if she felt she had a real choice she would have denied her father's request.

* * *

"You're kidding, right?" said Enzo in astonishment. "A _time machine_?"

"Nope," Kevin said.

They were in the War Room, Kevin scanning a vidpad of equations with Enzo asking him questions and becoming more fixated by the nano.

"That's awesome."

Kevin grinned to one side. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"I can make it up," said the teenager. "Besides, my teachers aren't sure which class I should be in since I'm a little older than I was a minute ago."

"I guess that might be a problem," said Kevin. "Have you thought about home school?"

"That'd be great, but Dot wouldn't go for it," Enzo said.

"You should ask her," Sawyer said. He handed the vidpad to Specky for translation into code. "I was home-schooled, and my mother was a math professor. I'm sure your dad would make a great teacher." Enzo seemed to turn it over in his head. Then Kevin added: "Of course, I would be happy to help out."

"Really?"

"Sure. But you need to ask your dad and sister."

"Will you back me up?"

"Sure thing."

"Thanks, Kevin," said Enzo. "By the way, I never thanked you for those read-me files you brought me."

"It was no trouble. Did you like them?"

"It was pixelicious! All of it. I've never downloaded so much data in my life."

When Kevin returned he had brought with him several CDs' worth of information. Hoping to set up an exchange of knowledge, Sawyer had part of his personal library from home digitized into data files and put on CDs to take back to Mainframe. He had made a special batch for Enzo that contained works of both fiction and non-fiction. The young man had thrown himself into the stuff, pouring over pictures of Earth and reading the articles about its cultures, history, and indigenous forms of life.

He found most of the fiction more exciting. He devoured the seven Philip Marlow detective novels as well as the adventures of a secret agent named James Bond. He read a few science-fiction novels, finding the stuff too cerebral for his taste. He did, however, enjoy one very funny sci-fi novel called _The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy_. He laughed almost continuously through the entire book. By this time he was well into the Sherlock Holmes stories, but he found them to be a little stale. The Ellery Queen novels were much more to his liking, _The Roman Hat Mystery_ being his favorite detective story thus far.

"That was my favorite as a kid," Sawyer said. "I've got the whole series at home. Next time I'll bring the rest with me so you can have them."

"Dude, that'd be sweet," Enzo said.

Kevin was reminded of his childhood fantasy of becoming a detective. The hard crime adventures of Philip Marlow and the deduction problems of Ellery Queen had once fueled his imagination. In the end his love of science and discovery asserted itself more forcefully, but that familiar love of mystery and adventure had stayed with him through the years.

At first Sawyer was astonished that Enzo had read so much in so short a time span, but remembered that sprites required less rest than a human and possessed a much more efficient means of storing data. He was also reminded that he was still measuring a day in terms of twenty-four hours. There was no such thing as a "twenty-four-hour day" in cyberspace. From Kevin's human perspective, a day in Mainframe felt like two Earth days.

Welman walked into the War Room, followed by Bob and Dot.

"Kevin, good news," said the professor, "we can proceed with the experiment today."

"That's great." He turned to the . "Thanks, Dot."

"You're welcome. There are a few conditions, though," she said. "Control will be run from here. If there is a problem I'll be the one with my finger on the off switch. And I want Bob in the Core Room just in case."

"I'll be up here monitoring the Gateway activity," Welman said. "You and Bob can conduct the actual experiment."

"Can I watch?" asked Enzo.

Dot looked at her little brother as if noticing him for the first time. "Why aren't you in school?" she asked.

"The school is still trying to figure out which grade Enzo belongs in," said Welman. "I told him he could skip today." He turned to Kevin. "Would you mind a little more company?"

"Absolutely not," said Kevin. "I can use his help."

"Fantastic," said Welman enthusiastically. "Let's get started."

* * *

The Gateway Command stood in the center of the Core Room's central elevator platform. It had remained stored here since Megabyte's reign of terror because, theoretically, the Core Room was the safest, most secure room in all of Mainframe.

Kevin worked at the Gate's control terminal while Enzo stood to one side, trying not to seem bored. Bob was escorting Hack and Slash to the Core Room with their cargo.

"The life of a lab assistant doesn't seem to fit with you," Kevin said.

Enzo replied, "It's better than sitting in school all day." The teenager walked over to stand in front of the Gateway. "I don't get it. How is the Gateway a time machine?"

Kevin looked up from the terminal. "Remember how I told you time in my universe is measured in seconds?" he asked. "Well, that means events in cyberspace happen faster than they do in my reality. If I could look at Mainframe from the vantage point of my universe I'd see everything in fast forward, and vice versa; if you could see my universe from Mainframe you'd see us moving like slugs. In Einstein lingo: our two universes exist in separate inertial frames of reference; relative to one another, no two events are simultaneous. In relativity physics this is called a time dilation."

"Okay," said Enzo, nodding in understanding so far.

"Your dad and I created a smaller dilation to counterbalance the larger one. It's like this: this end of the portal is spinning very fast, close to the speed of light. The other end is inside the computer system that runs my teleportation system, and it is barely moving at all. Time slows down for objects in frames of reference that are moving close to light speed. This causes one end of the portal to exist in my temporal frame of reference and the other to exist in your temporal frame of reference. This is how we're able to communicate, but it has a bizarre side effect. When I'm talking to you from the project control room I'm talking to a past Mainframe that has already happened from my perspective. When you talk back you're talking to the future, a Kevin Sawyer that has yet to be. Of course neither notices because the effect of the larger time dilation makes it appear as if it is all happening simultaneously."

"So whenever you teleport through the portal you're actually going back in time?"

"Relative to my home universe, yes."

"That's wicked," Enzo said.

"That's also very interesting because time travel under normal physics is thought to be impossible. Then again, these are extraordinary circumstances."

The heavy door of the Core Room opened and Bob, followed by Hack and Slash, came in. The two robots carried the radiation gun between them. They sat it down seven feet in front of the Gateway. The radiation gun was a black box four feet square with a vertical slit on the front face with a glass eye in the center. A flat panel LCD touch-screen stuck out from the top of the device at a forty-five-degree angle.

"Special delivery. One radiation gun," said Hack.

"Thanks, guys," said Sawyer.

Kevin walked around and inspected the touch-screen.

"Boy, I'd hate to be in front of this thing when it gets turned on," Slash said.

"You got that right," Kevin said. "Just a few seconds exposure to gamma rays would be enough to sign your death warrant."

"Does everything look right?" asked Bob.

"It seems so," said Kevin. "It's already been programmed with the proper radiation ranges. All we have to do is turn it on and let it ride."

"What exactly are you trying to do?" asked Bob.

"We're trying to get an idea of what it's like inside the portal," Kevin said. "The plan is to fire bursts of gamma rays through the portal," said Kevin. "During transit the forces within the wormhole will alter the frequency of the bursts slightly. We fire a set number of bursts through the portal at a particular frequency and my team on the other side will record the frequency of the gamma rays upon exiting the portal. After we compare the frequencies of before and after we'll be able to extrapolate a topology of the interior of the portal."

Sawyer went into a more detailed description of the process. Eventually everything was set up, and the Virtual Man project team was notified that the experiment was about to begin. Kevin started firing controlled bursts of gamma radiation into the Gateway. The actual portal was so small that it could not been seen by the naked eye.

After a few microseconds they had fired over a hundred bursts into the portal.

"That should do it," said Welman through a vidwindow. "All we have to do is compute the frequency changes and —"

An alarm went off suddenly. Welman looked at his instruments. The sensor reading the Gate's energy input was showing a steady increase. "Kevin, are you reading an energy fluctuation down there?"

Sawyer looked at his console. The readings showed a 3 increase in the portal power consumption. And it was rising. "I've got an indicator on my screen that shows the Gateway is drawing in more power. It's rising exponentially."

"Dad," Dot said, "what's happening?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "For some reason there is a buildup of energy in the portal."

"Can you stop it?" asked Dot.

"I'm not even sure what's causing it. Specky, what's the status of the core? Are there any power drains being caused by the Gateway?"

The lab tech checked his controls and reported back. "The power output is stable. Wherever the extra energy is coming from, it's not from the core."

"I've got a theory," said Kevin. "The gamma rays might have boosted the energy of the portal a bit. What we're reading is feedback."

"Commander, sir, ma'am," Specky said, "the energy input is 17 above normal. The engineering tolerances are set at 20."

"I'm aware of the engineering tolerances," Professor Matrix said with a hint of impatience. Then he sighed. "I suppose we don't really have any choice. I recommend we shut down the Gateway."

 _Music to my ears_ , thought Dot. "Okay, I'm cutting power." Dot pressed the proper controls and the power input to the Gateway ceased. A few nanoseconds passed. Welman Matrix became alarmed when the power input indicator continued to rise vertically on his screen.

"It's still rising," said Kevin.

"I see it," Welman said. "Confirm: the Gateway isn't drawing energy from the core?"

"None," said Specky. "The power levels should be dropping."

"Yeah, well, they're not," said Bob. Glitch was taking readings and displaying them for Bob's inspection. "It's already 30 above normal power input."

"Welman, the Gate's building toward an overload," Kevin said. Was it urgency in his voice or panic?

Alarm gripped Dot as those words reached her ears. Her palms became sweaty and cold and her pulse quickened. "Specky, run a diagnostic on the Gateway, quick! Find out where this extra energy is coming from."

"There's no way the gamma rays could be causing this," Welman said. "They might have been enough to cause the surge we detected at first, but this is impossible."

Kevin was franticly running an analysis of his own. The internal sensors showed a spontaneous buildup of virtual particles in within the portal itself. "Welman, the energy is coming from inside the wormhole itself. I'm reading a massive buildup of virtual particles."

A bright, shimmering light burst into existence from the center of the Gateway. It was accompanied by loud crackling noises that echoed throughout the Core Room.

"What's happening?" asked Enzo.

"It's the portal," said Kevin. "It's becoming supercharged."

"What does that mean?" the teen asked.

"It means the portal is absorbing too much energy too quickly," Bob explained.

Kevin turned back to the vidwindow. "We've got a problem down here. The portal is going to go critical if we don't figure out where these particles are coming from."

Specky reported, "It's nothing from our end. The Gateway has been completely disconnected from the power grid."

Bolts of energy snaked around the circumference of the Gateway. It almost looked like a novelty plasma ball. Had the situation been less dire, Sawyer might have appreciated the beauty of the scene; however, the terrifying possibility of another Twin City disaster kept him focused on eliminating the buildup of particles within the wormhole. Unfortunately, the reaction was spontaneous; he had no idea how they were being created, much less how to stop them. A bolt of high energy plasma lashed out and struck the side wall of the Core Room.

"Kevin," Bob yelled over the sound of electricity, "Glitch is showing a 200 increase in energy from the portal! We've got to get out of here! It's going to explode!"

"Evacuate the Principal Office," Dot ordered.

A CPU trooper entered the War Room, evidently unaware of the situation in the Core Room. "Commander, we've got a crashed transport in Kits Sector. It just came out of nowhere."

"Don't bother me with that, now!" she yelled. "Start evac procedures and —"

An explosion reverberated through the intercom. On the vidwindow an expanding field of blue light seemed to engulf the Core Room and then static filled the screen.

"BOB!" Dot screamed.

* * *

Bright blue light engulfed the three of them, accompanied by a wave of disorientation. Kevin noted that it was much worse than a typical trip through a portal. He had the sensation of acceleration, of a helpless frontward motion like galloping at full speed upon horseback. Then the feeling of solid ground beneath him returned and the blue light faded.

Kevin rolled over on his back. He was still a little nauseous, but otherwise unharmed. The scientist looked around. He was in an auditorium filled with people. Behind him was a Gateway Command similar to the one in Mainframe. There was obviously great unrest in the crowd. Apparently his arrival had generated a stir. Wait: Bob and Enzo? Where were they? Had they been transported with him?

"Kevin," he heard Enzo say. The boy appeared over him, trying to see if he was injured. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Kevin said hoarsely. "Help me up, will you?"

The teen helped Kevin rise to his feet. The scientist saw Bob standing close by. He was doing something with Glitch, and from the look on his face something was terribly wrong.

 _Other than the fact we've been transported to another system_ , _what else could be wrong?_ Kevin asked himself sardonically.

They were on a stage in the front of a large auditorium. Some of the sprites present in the crowd wore white lab coats, the signature garb of the scientist.

"Welcome," said a man. He approached the trio from behind a podium to the left. He was green-skinned with glasses and a mustache. He too wore a white lab coat. If Kevin didn't know better, he'd say he was looking at Enzo at age 40.

"What happened?" asked Kevin. "Where are we?"

Enzo was transfixed by the man standing before them. Bob was standing next to them, now, remaining silent.

"I'm Professor Welman Matrix," said the Sprite. "You're in the system of Mainframe."


	2. Chapter 2

Part II

 _"_ _For each moment in history there exist an infinite number of possible outcomes. Normally we only see one outcome in our everyday lives_ , _but those other possibilities that never came to fruition are equally real and occur elsewhere._ _"_ – The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Welman Matrix was Mainframe's greatest scientific mind, and he went down in history as one of the greatest visionaries of all time. His invention, the Gateway Command, revolutionized Internet travel and secured his place in history.

During his first experiment he transported three people from another system into Mainframe, proving his theory that other systems existed in cyberspace. Soon this success led to contact with other systems, eventually bringing Mainframe into contact with the Guardian Collective of the Supercomputer. With help from the Internet community and support from the Guardians, every system was equipped with a Gateway Command, allowing instantaneous travel between systems through wormholes. A new era of Internet travel was born and the Net entered a new era of progress.

Unfortunately, the Gateway Network proved to be the Net's greatest disadvantage.

Daemon came without warning, infecting the Supercomputer and the Guardian Collective without so much as breaking a sweat. She used the Network to spread her infection to virtually every system in a matter of milliseconds following her conquest of the Guardians. Only Mainframe and two other systems, Proxima and Alpha, were able to avoid the infection. It was by a stroke of luck they had survived. A Guardian programmer, Mouse, had been working on improving security measures for the network. Mainframe, Proxima, and Alpha were part of a closed network test where a new, experimental firewall was being tested. When Daemon's infection spread through the Network, infecting every system it touched, the firewall had repelled the attack and kept them safe.

Almost immediately, Daemon began looking for ways to breach the firewall. For some odd reason, it seemed whatever she had planned could not be completed until she had every system under her command. With the resources of the entire Net behind her, she soon discovered a way to get around the barrier. It was common knowledge that some game cubes were networked. Daemon found a way to identify games that were networked to Mainframe, Proxima, and Alpha. Using her connection to other viruses who had succumbed to her infection, she sent whole armies to piggyback on the cubes and enter the shielded systems.

Mouse, the brilliant programmer she was, managed to keep one step ahead of Daemon's attempts to breach the firewall. Thus, Daemon's viral army used networked game cubes to enter Mainframe and the other protected systems whenever possible. Sometimes as many as fifteen viruses entered Mainframe.

Many people had been lost in those brutal attacks. The first minute saw the most bloodshed. The Twin City was practically destroyed by a core breach. The rest of Mainframe gradually degraded into a wasteland as more and more viruses invaded. The remaining population of Mainframe sought refuge in the Principal Office. There they shielded themselves and gathered their strength for the war to come. None was more saddened than Welman Matrix, the sprite whose own mind and hands had built the Gateway Network. His invention had been perverted into a weapon, and he silently bore a heavy guilty conscience.

In a desperate attempt to combat Daemon and her viral army, the great inventor turned to one of his earlier experiments and formed a daring plan. Welman Matrix considered the Reality Distortion Engine both his greatest blunder and one of his greatest accomplishments. Early in his career, Welman conducted rudimentary experiments with space-time. He was one of the first to develop a testable quantum theory of space-time, which revealed a connection between the structure of space-time itself and gravity. This led to the development of the temporal field.

The temporal field was not really a field in the classical sense but a pocket of isolated space-time. Anything within the field became disconnected from the outside universe. The field had specific relativistic properties that allowed movement "forward" or "backward" along the temporal axis. Unfortunately, Welman could only project a temporal field into the future, never the past. After repeated failures, he abandoned the RDE and moved on.

After Daemon's invasion, Welman revived his old experiment and began working on a way to project objects back in time. It was his hope that history could be changed. This had consumed most of Mainframe's remaining resources, as well as the resources of Proxima and Alpha. For the longest time it seemed like his newest attempt at time travel would end just as fruitlessly as the first. Then, quite unexpectedly, help arrived.

Kevin Sawyer came through the Gateway Command one second while Mainframe was connected to Proxima. The portal inexplicably began fluctuating and within nanos Sawyer was thrown out of the portal wearing an orange pressure suit. At first he told them he was part of a teleportation experiment, and his destination had been the Supercomputer, not Mainframe. It was later revealed that the Gateway had intercepted his data stream because of its programming to lock on to energy bursts. This lent credit to his story, but it still did not explain how he had escaped Daemon's infection, especially when he was not from either Proxima or Alpha.

Using the Gateway, Welman attempted to trace the data stream back to its source. When Professor Matrix analyzed the data, he was utterly shocked by what he found. It was not direct evidence, but it was convincing enough for a sprite who had studied portals his entire life. There were other systems in cyberspace. Why could there not be systems _outside_ cyberspace as well? When the professor confronted Kevin with this, he confirmed it. He was a scientist from a parallel universe that existed outside the Net. He had been sent by his government to remove the Daemon virus from the Supercomputer.

It was obvious that could not be done by a single individual. It was Sawyer's intention to return to his world and report his findings to his superiors. However, a viral attack on the Principal Office resulted in the destruction of the retrieval module. Sawyer was marooned in cyberspace. With no place to go and nowhere to turn, Kevin reluctantly agreed to assist Welman with perfecting the RDE. Kevin was practically a godsend. The two were alike in many ways and found it enjoyable to work together. Eventually they became good friends.

He grew close to Enzo and Dot. The young man of eighteen hours was an intuitive youth, playful, and fun to have in company. He reminded Sawyer of himself when he was a teenager. Naturally, the two became close. Kevin and Dot enjoyed a tangential relationship; they were neither close nor distant. Kevin's true existence as a user was known only to Welman, and Kevin suspected Dot was still highly suspicious of him. However, his skills as a scientist and engineer had greatly accelerated the construction of the time machine.

Now was the eve of revelation.

* * *

Kevin Sawyer was bent over a table soldering connections on a circuit board when he heard someone enter his domicile. He turned and saw Dot coming to him with a metal plate in her hand.

"Working hard?" she asked.

"Always," Kevin replied. He put his tools aside and cleared a spot on the workbench.

"I brought you some food," she said. "You weren't at dinner, so I saved you some."

"Thanks. I guess I lost track of time."

Dot laid a metal plate before him. Rations were sparse. They had few working food synthesizers and little energy to run them on. It mattered little to Sawyer that the selection was limited; all he really required was a bed and a workbench. She sat next to him on a stool as he ate. The room served as a workshop and makeshift living quarters. There was a cot in one corner, a chair, and a long metal workbench against the left wall. Electrical components were scattered across the room on various improvised shelves and tables.

"What are you working on?" she asked.

"The flux inflow regulator for the primary RDE," Kevin explained. "I'm almost finished. We should be good to go in a second or two."

"Thank the user," Dot said. Kevin seemed to pause when she said this, but she did not notice. "What will happen when you change it?" Dot continued. "You know, history?"

"A new history will take the place of the old," said Kevin. "It will be like the last few hours never happened." He caught himself and corrected. "I mean it will be as if the last four hours happened differently."

She sighed. "It's scary to think something like the past isn't set in stone, that it can be changed."

"Past, present, and future are just words to describe experience. They're all one in the same. Actually, when treated as a dimension, time becomes static, so in reality time doesn't 'fly' or even move at all. It's just the opposite, we're what's moving."

"Kevin," Dot interrupted.

"Sorry. What I'm trying to say is that the past still exists."

"I've heard this same lecture from both you and my father," she said. "Believe me, I might as well be an expert on time travel physics."

Kevin chuckled. "How's Enzo?" he asked.

"He's fine. He and the welding crew are all finished with the inner hull."

"How about your dad?"

"Exhausted. I had to make him go to bed. He hasn't slept in cycles."

Kevin was tired himself. He tried to remember the last time he had slept but failed. It had probably been a cycle as well. He and Welman worked side by side most of the time.

"You haven't had much sleep either," Dot told him. "You're starting to look run down."

"I feel run down," said Sawyer. "But this is almost ready. I can have it finished by tomorrow."

"Don't you think you should get some rest first?" she asked.

"I'm almost done. It won't take but an hour." He was unable to retract his mistake of telling time because, unwillingly, he yawned.

"You were saying?" asked Dot.

He sighed. _Never argue with a woman_ , he told himself. He finished his meal and thanked Dot again for bringing him his supper. When she left he turned out the light and lay on his cot.

Kevin was tired but not sleepy. He still had too much on his mind. Time travel was a tricky thing. They only knew enough about the true nature of the space-time continuum for them to build a working time machine. The actual mechanics of changing history were still mysterious, given to quantum uncertainty.

He rolled over and shut his eyes. Images of home filled the blackness of his eyelids. He missed West Virginia and his old life. He remembered the day he stepped into the teleporter, the last day he saw Tom, Sophie, Kellous, everybody. He silently cursed Clark and the rest of the National Security Council. Then he cursed himself for taking on the mission in the first place.

 _Why did you have to do it?_ he asked himself often. He could have refused to participate in the NSC's plot to recruit him, but in truth he knew why he had played into their hand. He wanted to be a hero. _Some hero you turned out to be._

He remembered his arrival in Mainframe clearly. Daemon had infected the Supercomputer and had spread to every computer system on the planet. There was no way to combat the menace from the outside, so the NSC ordered Sawyer to teleport into the Pentagon mainframe computer and destroy the virus from within. The whole operation was a mistake from the beginning.

Kevin's data stream had been intercepted by the Gateway Network, and instead of being teleported to the Supercomputer, he materialized in Mainframe. Mainframe was only one of three systems with an active Gateway not controlled by Daemon. Mainframe's Gateway had been connected with one of the other systems, Proxima, when it pulled Kevin's stream into the system.

At first he had no idea what was going on. He could not say much for the welcoming committee since they all greeted him with their guns cocked and locked, apparently ready to blow him away at a moment's notice. If it had not been for Welman he probably would have been executed then and there.

Poor Welman. Kevin pitied the man. His life's work had been turned into a vehicle of slavery. He sometimes put Kevin in mind of J. Robert Oppenheimer after the first A-bomb test. Legend has it that as he saw the awesome destruction of the weapon he helped create Oppenheimer quoted a passage from the Bhagavad Gita: _"_ _I am become Death_ , _the destroyer of worlds._ _"_

Although he could never have anticipated Daemon, he still felt responsible for the repercussions. In a way this time machine was his saving grace. Kevin finally felt sleep begin to tug at his tired mind. He descended into oblivion, and allowed his overworked mind to let go of the cares burdening him. His eyes heavy, body fatigued, Sawyer drifted into peaceful slumber.

* * *

Dot arrived at her family's domicile and found her father still asleep in his cot. She had dropped off the plate at the cafeteria section to be cleaned. There was no sign of Enzo. He must have been with his girlfriend, Zoë.

Dot sat down at a table and reached for the most recent intelligence report on viral activity. The virals had not openly attacked the Principal Office in over a minute. This was disturbing for several reasons. During the first cycles of the war the attacks had been nearly continuous. Each new game cube brought more and more viruses, and each passing second there were less people to fight them. Now something had changed.

The viruses no longer attacked at random or as individuals. They had started to act as a large unit, which was highly unusual. Viruses typically did not possess the social skill to act as a team, yet their behavior as of late indicated they were responding to a centralized leadership. Who that leadership was was still a mystery, and it was worrying Dot. Daemon's infection obviously made them respond to her will, but they still possessed their core predatory traits.

She put her glasses aside and checked on her father. He was sound asleep. Just as Dot was about to slip under the covers of her own cot, Enzo walked in.

"Hey," she whispered. "Where have you been?"

"With Zoë," he replied quietly. "I haven't been able to spend much time with her lately."

He and Zoë had been a couple for hours. Dot was not sure how physical their relationship was. Quite frankly, she was afraid to ask.

"How's Kevin?" asked Enzo.

"Like Dad: beat." She sighed heavily. "I hope the timeship was worth all of this."

"Dad says it'll work," Enzo said. "He's been right about everything else."

"I just don't know if I'm comfortable with the idea of changing things when we don't know what the end result will be. I mean, what if we're better off?"

"Anything is better than living like this," Enzo said.

"I guess we'll find out tomorrow." Dot turned to her cot and pulled back the covers.

Enzo turned out the solitary light and found his own bed. Soon there was total silence. Dot lay awake, still trying to fathom what new future would come in the seconds ahead.

* * *

The time machine, or rather the timeship, was aptly named _Relativity_. It had the same dimensions and basic design as an F-117 Nighthawk. Its triangular construction gave it optimal aerodynamic maneuverability. Its hull was a dull steel gray. There were no wings; the craft was propelled by an antigravity/Higgs boson inertia reduction system. It was sitting on its three struts in the middle of the hangar bay.

Kevin was supervising the installation of the primary Reality Distortion Engine. It was a circular module on the underside of the ship near its aft. Its compact maze of wires, circuits, and relays were a masterpiece of engineering. The timeship was powered by a PAP (proton/anti-proton) fusion reactor. It produced over 500,000 terawatts of electricity, enough to power the RDE and all other essential systems.

"Kevin," said Welman. "How's it coming?"

"We've got the RDE installed and ready. Tell Jimmy to turn on the juice."

The command was passed along and the binome mechanic activated the reactor from the cockpit. The RDE purred as precious energy was fed to it. Kevin held a scanning instrument close to the module. The power circuits were holding and the flux inflow regulator was holding the feedback within tolerance specs.

"Looks like everything here is working perfectly," Kevin reported. "Okay, Jimmy," called Kevin as he stepped back from the ship, "cut power."

The RDE whined as its life's blood was slowly drained away.

"That's it, Welman," Kevin said. "This bird's ready to fly."

"Excellent, excellent," said Welman. He felt a tide of relief pass through him. His redemption was finally at hand. "This is it, Kevin. We're on the home stretch now. By this time tomorrow this world will be little more than a bad dream."

"How's Mouse coming with the file lock?" asked Kevin.

"She's in the War Room running a diagnostic. Could you check in with her for me?"

Kevin nodded and left the hangar for the War Room. Kevin felt equally proud as well. As if quantum digitization weren't enough, he had also co-fathered the science of time travel.

 _Not bad for a Colorado farm boy_ , he mused to himself.

As he walked down the long hall to the elevator he passed a half open door to a storage room. As he walked past he heard a rustle come from inside. He stopped and looked inside. It was dark, and this was a secure area. No one should have been in here. He opened the door the rest of the way and walked inside. He heard movement again. It was hard to see with only the dim light from the hallway. He looked for the light switch and pressed it.

There were metal shelves along all four walls of the room, stocked with empty cardboard boxes. In the middle was a metal worktable on top of which laid two teenage sprites: Enzo Matrix and his girlfriend, Zoë Mathis. They both had looks of surprise and fright as Sawyer stood motionless.

"Woops," he said.

"K-Kevin," stuttered Enzo. "Uh... I can explain."

Quickly, Kevin shut the door behind him. Enzo and Zoë got off the table and stood before the flabbergasted adult. Their bodies were flushed, but they were still fully clothed.

"Hi, Dr. Sawyer," Zoë said meekly.

"Hello, Zoë," Kevin said tiredly, rubbing his forehead. "I guess it's pointless to ask what you two were doing down here."

Enzo said quickly, "I said I could explain. It's not what you think. We were... um..."

Kevin eyed the teenager plainly. "Please, I can't wait to hear this one," he said sarcastically.

"Well," Enzo said, "I... Zoë wanted to see the timeship, so I snuck her down here."

Kevin asked Zoë, "Is this true?"

The petite, bubblegum pink skinned girl nodded vigorously. "But we heard you and Professor Matrix were coming so Enzo hid me in this closet."

Kevin cocked his eyebrow. "His idea, huh? What a shock. A dark room, raging hormones, what else can you expect?"

"That was kind of the idea," Zoë said. She smiled up at Enzo, who smiled back.

"You're not going to tell my dad, are you?" asked Enzo.

"No," Kevin sighed. "That's your business. But for the love of God, next time lock the door instead of leaving it half open. Imagine what would have happened if Dot had walked in here instead of me."

The two teens followed Sawyer out into the hall after he checked to make sure the coast was clear. The three walked together toward the elevator, but Zoë broke away to walk down an adjoining hall to the left. She was due to be on duty in the medical wing in a few microseconds. She kissed Enzo good-bye and turned away.

Once she was out of earshot, Kevin asked, "Do you love her?"

"Yes," Enzo said. He turned back to Kevin. He looked at him with uncertainty, as if he was trying to decide something.

"You look like you've got something on your mind," Kevin said.

"I..." he swallowed. "I asked Zoë to marry me."

Kevin blinked but otherwise showed no emotion. "I'm guessing no one else knows this."

"No. You're the first to know."

"She said yes, didn't she?" Enzo smiled in response. Sawyer patted him on the shoulder. "Congratulations." Then suddenly Kevin felt sorry for Enzo and Zoë. What would become of them when Welman changed history? Would they still be together? Would they even have met at all?

These were questions Welman had been asked before. Again, the future was uncertain. There were an infinite number of outcomes associated with every action in history. For every future where Enzo and Zoë were married there were an equal number of futures where they were not married. Did they really have the right to meddle with history this way?

The plan was to travel to the first Gateway Command experiment and sabotage the Gateway. If the Gateway failed then the Gateway Network would never come to be, and Daemon would be unable to spread her infection, giving the Net time to fight her. They dared not interfere more than that. It was hard to predict what the future might be like; time travel held too many variables. Some suggested erasing Daemon's existence, but no one within the isolated systems knew anything about her origins.

The safest bet was to detract the first Gateway experiment and prevent the creation of the Gateway Network. Little did they know that forces akin to fate were already at work, and that the past and future were about to collide.

* * *

Mouse watched as lines of code scrolled down the vidwindow. The Guardian programmer was alone in the War Room save for Specky, who seemed to always be on duty. She sat at a station on the lower level. On a table beside her sat the hyperspace file lock docked in its cradle. The instrument was cylindrical and made of transparent plastic. One could see the intricate wiring and circuitry inside.

It was one foot long and three quarters of an inch in diameter. There was the mold of a hand grip on the bottom half and a red button on top for the thumb to depress. Pressing the red button would fire a beam of virtual particles, inert force-carrying particles. The beam was intended to overload the energy of a portal. Doing so would cause the interior of the portal to fold in on itself, creating a closed loop in space-time. According to Welman's calculations, such a loop would result in an exponential buildup of virtual particles within the portal and cause it to collapse.

Welman intended to return to the second of the first Gateway Command demonstration and sabotage the Gateway. Mouse was not a physicist and frankly the consequences of temporal causality and paradox made her head hurt. She tried not to think about anything other than her job. Although she did not resent her position, she was constantly frustrated by the prospect of being the last Guardian. She would not even be a Guardian had it not been for...

 _Stop it_ , she told herself. _You joined the Collective to honor him. There's no reason for resentment._

The normally strong-willed Mouse felt a pang of sorrow as the faded memory of her friend returned to her. He had been so enthusiastic and full of life. His death at the hands of a virus was pointless. At the time, Mouse was a mercenary, selling her skills to the highest bidder. The Guardians had tried time and again to recruit her, but military service was the farthest thing from her mind. Then she accepted a job which involved hacking into the Supercomputer data archives.

She would have gotten away with it had it not been for him. That cocky data-scout of a cadet arrested her. He arrested her! After all the fun they had together. She felt more than a little irked by that, and she let him know it too. She escaped, of course. There was no cell that could hold The Mouse. For a while she laid low until the smoke cleared. By that time, however, she learned he had been deleted by a virus. It escaped the deletion chamber and fled the system, never caught.

Before she could stop herself, she was in Turbo's office requesting a commission. The Prime Guardian also felt a sense of loss over their mutual friend and agreed to have the charges against her dropped. Thus began her life as a Guardian. The instant she put on the uniform she felt the weight of an unwanted responsibility, but it was something she felt compelled to see through. There were good people in the world. Her friend was one of them. And as long as she had the power, she would make sure his deletion would not be in vain. Her assignments eventually brought her to Mainframe where she helped develop an experimental firewall, and she had been here ever since.

The door on the upper level opened and Sawyer entered. "Hey. How's the file lock diagnostic coming along?"

"I think I've fixed all the glitches," Mouse replied in her distinguishing Southern voice. "It should do exactly what Welman designed it to do."

"We got the RDE installed. The ship is ready to fly."

"Is he really gonna go through with this?" asked Mouse.

"Yeah," Kevin said. "He's serious. Next second he's going to fly it back and change history. What's weird is that I think he can actually do it."

Mouse reached and pulled the file lock out of its cradle and handed it to Sawyer. "Here's hoping he can make it happen," she said. "Tell Welman I wish him luck."

"We're all wishing him luck."

Luck, like time, was merely an illusion.

* * *

Outside the Principal Office, miles away out in Baudway, a small group of viruses were gathered in the ruins of an old diner. They were the lieutenants of the viral army in Mainframe: Sasser, Mech, Voltaire, and Madron. Their commander, Gigabyte, stood before them, his massive body a singular presence of power and absolute authority. He had been sent by Daemon personally to coordinate the attacks among the three isolate systems. Unlike most other viruses, he had the virtue of patience. The key to winning any decisive victory was patience.

He saw a shadow move across a corner of the diner.

"Zeno," called Gigabyte in his deep, baritone voice, "show yourself."

The virus known as Zeno decloaked and became visible, fading in from nothingness. He had been spying on the sprites' activities for seconds. Now he was making his final report.

"Lord Gigabyte," said Zeno timidly, "the sprites have completed their time travel device. It is ready to be launched in the next second."

Sasser said, "We must move against them now. We've wasted enough time already."

"Time is a relative thing," said Gigabyte. "The Mainframers are vulnerable now. Completing their ship has given them a false sense of confidence." He paused and thought. "We will attack before they launch next second when they are occupied with launching their vehicle."

"We must strike now!" Sasser yelled. "They are going to destroy our Lady's plans with this abominable machine of theirs!"

In a lightning motion, Gigabyte seized Sasser by the throat and lifted him up off the floor. Fear and terror filled the virus's eyes as the iron grip cut off vital oxygen to his lungs. Then Gigabyte jammed his left claw into Sasser's stomach. Slowly the viral began to fade as Gigabyte fed off his precious life force. Once Gigabyte had sucked all his energy, Sasser pixilized.

He turned to his other lieutenants and said calmly, "We attack next second."


	3. Chapter 3

Part III

 _"_ _History hath triumphed over time_ , _which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over._ _"_ – Sir Walter Raleigh

Sergeant Jenkins was making his usual rounds around the Principal Office perimeter. He had been a security binome in the CPU forces for ten hours, and for the last hour he had been in charge of perimeter security for the Principal Office. Seven binomes, including himself, patrolled the outside security grid in thirty-microsecond shifts. His first shift was about to end.

Jenkins looked out across the lawn and into the ruins of Mainframe. The dark gray sky hung over the desolation like a depressing fog. It was the last scene he would ever see.

The virus known as Zeno had infiltrated the Principal Office on many occasions for the purpose of gathering intelligence on the Mainframers' activities. He was not a very aggressive virus. In fact, he had never harmed a living thing before in his life. This second, however, he would become a murderer.

Jenkins felt nothing, no pain or discomfort when Zeno, through telekinetic manipulation, caused Jenkins's brain to explode within his skull. The binome's eye rolled back into its socket and collapsed to the ground. Within nanoseconds his body pixilized, leaving no trace. Zeno, under the cloak of invisibility, made quick work of the other perimeter guards as well. When all of them were dead he moved into one of the guard towers and deactivated the alarms. When this was accomplished he signaled his comrades by flashing the searchlight atop the tower three times in the direction of Baudway.

Gigabyte saw the signal and ordered the first wave to move in.

* * *

The _Relativity_ was ready for her maiden voyage. Everyone who had worked on the project was crowded into the hangar bay to see her and Welman off.

"I know these last few minutes have been very hard on all of you," said Welman, speaking to the crowd. "I know this project has been both a beacon of hope and a source of uncertainty among everyone, myself included. I opened a new age with the Gateway Command, and now together we open another age, the age of time travel. With this machine we can undo the disaster that has befallen our civilization. After today, the Gateway Command will be relegated to the realm of obscurity, and our security will be guaranteed for generations to come. This is my solemn vow to you all. Never again will Mainframe feel the threat of Daemon or her army. Today history changes."

There was applause so thunderous it seemed to make the ground quake. Welman found Dot and Enzo and hugged them both. Dot could not help the tears rolling down her cheek.

"It's okay, princess," Welman said. "I promise, everything is going to be all right." He wiped her tears away and smiled warmly.

"I love you, Daddy," she said.

Enzo said to his father: "Mom would be proud, Dad."

Welman placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "I'll see you both soon." He shook Kevin's hand and thanked him once again for his help. "I couldn't have done it without you."

"It's been a pleasure working with you, Welman," said Kevin. "I wish you'd let me come with you."

"I know," replied the professor. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry things turned out the way they did. Perhaps in the new world-line we meet under more pleasant circumstances."

"One can only hope..." Kevin's voice trailed away. There was something strange happening. He felt a quake rumbling through the floor. There was a sound of thunder reverberating throughout the room.

Everyone else was slowly becoming aware of this as well.

"You feel that?" asked Sawyer.

"Yes," Welman replied. "I wonder —"

 _KABOOOM!_ The hangar doors were knocked off their tracks by a gargantuan explosion. The concussion threw everyone to the floor as shrapnel and debris were scattered across the deck. It did not take long for the Mainframers to realize what was happening.

Thirty viruses came pouring through the exposed hangar entrance. What the dell had happened? Why hadn't the perimeter security alerted them? Questions were pointless now. The citizens of Mainframe leaped into action. They drew their weapons and defended the timeship. It was obvious the _Relativity_ was their target.

"Welman," Kevin yelled over the crossfire, "I think it's time you were on your way." Sawyer reached for his pistol and withdrew it from his leg holster. He guided Welman around to the rear hatch of the timeship. Using the outside control panel he opened the hatch; the hydraulic pumps lowered the ramp to a thirty degree angle.

Out of nowhere, a virus leaped onto the aft of the timeship. It swung down and knocked Kevin aside before he could crack a shot. Welman pulled his compact rifle, but the virus was too quick. Its reptilian claws slashed through the metal and cast it aside. Without further hesitance the virus swept its claws across Welman's throat.

Just as the body of Welman Matrix pixilized into nothingness an energy beam pierced the virus's head, and it too pixilized. Sawyer stood frozen for a moment. Welman was dead.

 _Oh_ , _God... Welman!_ Kevin's mind was aflame with rage. He looked outside and saw the slaughter. The viruses were winning this time. All around him he saw people, men and women who had become his friends, being slashed and drained and hacked. He wanted to scream. He wanted to kill every one of those merciless creatures.

 _It's not too late. You can pilot the timeship. You can save him. You can save them all._

"Kevin!" he heard Dot call. She managed to enter the ship through the ramp. "Where's my father? Why hasn't he taken off yet?"

"Dot... they... they got him," Kevin stumbled. "Welman's gone." He said it with such finality that he surprised himself.

What was even more surprising was the calm Dot exhibited. "You can fly the timeship, can't you?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I can."

"Then you can save him! You can save all of us!" Desperation suddenly took hold of her, and she seemed to plead with Sawyer for a few moments. Again, he nodded. "You have to go. You have to go now. I'll tell everyone to give you cover fire."

"Wait," he said. "Come with me. I'm not sure if I can do this alone."

"It'll be all right," said Dot. "As long as you change things, everything will be all right. Now get going."

She left the ship and hit the controls for the rear hatch. It lifted up and sealed. Sawyer strapped himself into the pilot's seat. He really wished Dot would have come with him. Welman insisted on doing this alone, but, again, he felt it was his mistake to correct. His burden and no one else's. Now it was Kevin's burden.

He activated the anti-grav thrusters, took hold of the controls, and maneuvered the craft around the hangar until he was lined up with the hangar doors. Like Dot promised those remaining focused their fire on keeping the viruses from attacking the timeship. Several viruses leaped onto the hull and attempted to infect it and gain control of its systems. Luckily, Mouse equipped the _Relativity_ with custom firewall emitters. When Sawyer activated the shields, a red wave pushed the viruses off the ship. They hit the ground, only to be vaporized by the Mainframers. He hit the accelerator and launched himself into the open.

Once outside he climbed higher and higher into the sky.

From below, Gigabyte watched as the timeship gained altitude. Had his face not been locked in a perpetual frown already, he would have scowled.

"Incompetent fools," he muttered to himself.

* * *

Sawyer tried to put the events of the last few microseconds out of his mind and concentrated on the task at hand. On the control board to his right was a computer screen. On either side of the screen were five buttons which controlled the RDE system. He activated the Reality Distortion Engine and programmed the navigational computer with the proper spatio-temporal coordinates.

"Here goes nothin'," he said to himself.

He pressed the 'commit' key on the screen and the navcom took over. Sawyer heard the power building in the RDE. The ship began to shake a little. Outside, a field of green seemed to surround the timeship. Directly ahead, he saw a distortion in space, like a whirlpool of water. He knew it was merely a trick of the light being warped by the temporal field, but it was no less astonishing to see. Soon the outside universe was gone, and he was in complete darkness save for the indicators on his control board.

The ship rocked like a boat on the high seas. Apparently the inertial dampers were having trouble counterbalancing the gravitational forces generated by the temporal field. He was not sure how long the trip lasted but without warning the ship broke out of the darkness it had been in and into a blue sky. Sawyer looked down and saw Mainframe and its Twin City, intact and unscarred by war. The system was full of life and light. It made Sawyer smile broadly. He knew down there Welman Matrix was preparing to test his prototype Gateway Command. Sawyer reached underneath his seat and pulled out the hyperspace file lock.

"Today, history changes," he said.

* * *

Sawyer landed the _Relativity_ outside the university. It was equipped with a traffic transponder node so the civil activity sensors would detect it as a registered Mainframe vehicle. Hopefully the CPUs would not notice the unusual vehicle.

Sawyer made his way across the walkway and into the building. The auditorium was full of people, mostly scientists, and Welman was speaking from a podium on the stage. The Gateway Command stood on the stage in front of a wide, blue curtain. On either side of the Gateway hung a tapestry-sized picture of Welman. Sawyer took a seat near the middle and slowly drew out the file lock.

"I know I have my critics that say there are no other systems, but just stop a cycle and process that statement. Can you really believe we are alone? That Mainframe is the only system in cyberspace? I think not. My machine will detect other systems and link to them. It will prove that cyberspace is not an empty void, but a wondrous place filled with inhabited systems, peoples, and friends. We are not alone."

The words were prophetic. Sawyer almost felt sorry for Welman. He was deserving of all the fame he had in the future. It only made what he had to do all the more difficult.

Welman activated the ping.

"System detected." The portal began to form. "Executing Gateway Command."

Kevin pointed the file lock and pressed the trigger. An invisible beam of virtual particles streamed into the portal. There was a bright flash, a crackling of energy, and a slight concussion wave, as if a small explosion occurred.

What happened next almost caused Sawyer to pass out. Three figures emerged from the portal just before it vanished. One was blue-skinned and he wore a Guardian uniform. Another was a young man in his late teens. It was Enzo! That was not the strangest thing of all. The third person in the group was himself, Kevin Sawyer!

"What went wrong?" he asked under his breath.

* * *

Kevin was pacing back and forth in deep thought. The three of them had been moved into a small lounge. Enzo guessed from the looks of it that it was the faculty lounge. He vaguely remembered it from his childhood before the disaster. It contained a rectangular coffee table, a sofa, a few chairs, end tables with lamps, an access terminal for vidwindows, and a few decorative pictures on the walls. A restroom adjoined the room as well as a small kitchenette on the other side. A door, no doubt locked, led into a narrow hallway which emptied into a central hall that ran the length of the complex.

Enzo was sitting on the sofa while Bob leaned against the wall. Bob had warned them not to say a thing until they were alone. Well, they had been alone for almost five microseconds and the room was filled with a deafening silence. Enzo finally broke it.

"Isn't anyone going to explain this?" he asked.

Kevin shook his head. "Explain it how? It's pretty obvious what's happened."

"We've gone back in time, haven't we?" Enzo said, as if straining for clarity. "Is this for real?"

"It seems so," Bob said.

"But how?" Enzo said. "What happened?"

"The Gateway obviously malfunctioned," said Kevin. "There was a phenomenal surge of virtual particles feeding back through the portal just before that flash."

"Could the Gateway have exploded, like the last time?" Enzo asked.

"I don't know," said Kevin. "I just don't know."

"Whadda ya mean you don't know? You're a supergenius. You're supposed to know about stuff like this."

"Enzo, never in my life did I ever expect to find myself in something as _outrageous_ as a time warp."

"I guess it's not so outrageous now, is it?" Enzo exclaimed.

"You don't understand," Kevin said, "time travel is not what you'd call mainstream physics. It's more like an intellectual curiosity in my universe. Few scientists take it seriously."

"At least tell me you know something about it."

"I do. At least, I know the principles involved. Still, the fact that it's possible is a major breakthrough. This completely invalidates the chronological protection conjecture."

"Kevin, please try to suppress the nerd and give me a straight answer," Enzo said. "Can you get us back?"

"Back to the future? I honestly have no idea, but even if we do find a way it won't be our future. We've already altered events by coming through the Gateway."

"What? How? We haven't done anything."

"Wrong," Bob said. "By just being here we've caused changes in what would have happened originally. And I'm afraid we've damaged Mainframe's history severely."

"How? All we did was show up though the Gateway," Enzo said. "How can that damage history?"

"Enzo, you saw your father," Bob said. "He wasn't a null because the Twin City Explosion hasn't happened yet, and now because of us it never will."

With that one statement, Enzo realized the severity of what happened. "You mean today was the day of the explosion?"

Bob nodded. "When I saw something was wrong, I ordered Glitch to synch with the system clock. From what I can tell, the explosion was supposed to happen the moment we appeared in the auditorium."

"But I thought Gigabyte was supposed to come through the Gateway. That's how Megabyte and Hexadecimal were born and how everyone in the Twin City got nullified."

"That is what happened in our history, but now we came through instead," said Kevin. "And in doing so we averted the disaster."

This time Bob shook his head. "This is not good."

"How can you say that?" asked Enzo. "We've just saved thousands of people from being nullified, my dad included. How is that a bad thing?"

"Enzo, our future doesn't exist anymore," said Bob. "From this point forward everything we know about the future is worthless. Even if we somehow manage to get back to our own time it won't be the Mainframe we left behind."

"Not necessarily," said Kevin.

Both Bob and Enzo looked at the human scientist with glimpses of hope.

"This whole business has got me thinking. The very fact that we have interfered with history confirms the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics."

"You're talking about multiple world-lines," said Bob. "Parallel universes."

"Exactly. If time travel is possible, which it obviously is, then there must be a multiverse where all possible courses of history coexist."

"Meaning our history still exists," Bob said. "We're just not a part of it anymore."

"You got it." Sawyer eyed Bob curiously. "How do you know about all this?"

"All Guardian Cadets at the Academy have to take a course in temporal mechanics their senior quarter before commissioning. It's required by the Temporal Protocol."

"What's the Temporal Protocol?" asked Enzo.

"It's a subset of the Guardian Protocol that deals with time travel."

"Whoa, wait a minute, let me get this straight," Kevin said. "You're saying the Guardians have a special rule book exclusively dedicated to time travel?"

"Yeah," Bob said, as if it were no big deal.

"So then time travel is no new thing here. People have known about it?"

"Pretty much."

"And how often is this protocol exercised?"

"To my knowledge it's never been used."

"Then why even have it?"

"There's only been one recorded incident of time travel documented by the Guardians. As soon as it became clear it was possible, the Guardians deemed the technology illegal. The Temporal Protocol was written during that time in case a Guardian should ever find himself in a situation where time travel was being exploited."

"And what does the Temporal Protocol say about our situation?" asked Enzo.

"'If a Guardian finds himself in an alternate world-line then the Guardian in question is obligated to restore the previously dominant history by any means necessary.'"

"I don't suppose Glitch can morph into a time machine, can he?" said Kevin.

"Afraid not," Bob replied.

"Well, I guess the best way out is the way we came in," said Kevin.

"Will the Gateway Command work?" Bob asked.

"It brought us here," said Kevin. "It stands to reason it can do it again. I'll have to do some serious number crunching. It'll be almost impossible without a supercomputer to help with the calculations. I might be able to —"

"You two have got to be kidding!" Enzo shouted. "You're actually serious about putting things back?"

"Enzo, we have to," said Bob.

"No we don't. How do we know everyone won't live better lives if we don't just leave things the way they are?"

"Because," came a familiar voice, "their lives won't be better, Enzo." The three of them turned to the now-open door of the lounge. Standing in the doorway was a man who looked and sounded exactly like Kevin Sawyer. "Their lives will be a living dell."


	4. Chapter 4

Part IV

 _"_ _Anything that happens_ , _happens._

 _Anything that_ , _in happening_ , _causes something else to happen_ , _causes something else to happen._

 _Anything that_ , _in happening_ , _causes itself to happen again_ , _happens again._

 _It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order_ , _though._ _"_

– Douglas Adams, _Mostly Harmless_

"What the..." Kevin's voice trailed off.

The other Sawyer closed the door and walked into the lounge. "So, you're the three sprites Welman brought to Mainframe. It all makes sense now."

"I'm glad one of us is making sense," Kevin said. "I feel like I'm in a house of mirrors."

"Don't feel bad," Sawyer said. "It took me a while to completely understand temporal causality and stuff like that."

"Causality?" Kevin asked. "You mean you're me."

"From another world-line, apparently," said the alternate Sawyer. "It's odd, but this is exactly the event I was trying to prevent."

"You?" asked Bob. "You caused the Gateway to malfunction?"

"I was trying to collapse the portal," said Sawyer. "I had no idea I was actually participating in history."

"What are you talking about?" asked Enzo.

"It's a temporal causality loop," Bob said. "The future is writing its own past."

"I don't understand," Enzo said. "You just said this isn't our history anymore."

"That's right," said the alternate Sawyer. "It's my history that's being written. From my perspective, this is how history unfolded in my world-line."

"Care to elaborate?" Kevin asked.

"There's no time," Sawyer said urgently. "We have to get out of here before Welman and his colleagues come back."

"You have a way out of here?" Bob asked.

"I have a ship outside. Follow me."

The other Sawyer led them out into the hall. Slumped against the wall next to the door was an unconscious security sprite.

"I had to knock him out with my pistol," the alternate Sawyer said. "Don't worry, he's just taking a nap."

He led them down the hall to a set of double doors marked "EXIT." Once outside he led them across the walkway. It was at this point he began explaining himself. He told them about his experience in Mainframe, about Daemon's invasion, and how it was Welman's idea to travel back in time and thwart his attempt at making contact with other systems.

"Welman built a network that unified the entire Net," Sawyer explained. "When Daemon infected the Supercomputer she simultaneously infected the whole Internet as well by using the Gateway Command."

"And you traveled back in time to prevent the network from being built," clarified Enzo. "Is it just me or is this getting weird?"

"We're way past weird. This is some real Twilight Zone stuff," Kevin said. "So Daemon is in control of the whole Net in your reality?"

"Practically," said the alternate Sawyer.

"That makes sense," Bob said. "In our history Daemon had to move slowly because the keytools left the Guardians. Without the capacity to make portals, Daemon couldn't reach offline or disconnected systems. With a Gateway Network unifying the Net, she wouldn't have to worry about access."

"So Daemon tried to invade the Net in your world-line as well?" asked the alternate Sawyer.

"Yeah," responded Enzo, "and she would have won if it hadn't been for Hex."

"Who?"

"Hexadecimal," Enzo repeated. "Queen of Chaos. Always had a thing for Bob. A bit on the nutty side."

"I've never heard of her. She was a virus?"

"It's a long story," Bob said. "Back there you said it was your history being written. What exactly happened with Welman's experiment?"

"In my history Welman Matrix transported three sprites from another system into Mainframe. This proved his theories about life existing elsewhere in cyberspace."

"Three people?" asked Enzo. "This is starting to sound familiar."

"It should," Kevin said. He turned back to his double. "We're the three sprites your history said Welman transported to Mainframe."

"Believe me, this isn't what I was going for," he replied. He stopped and turned and pulled out the hyperspace file lock. "This was supposed to collapse the portal, not cause it to connect to another universe."

"What does it do?" asked Kevin.

"It fires a beam of virtual particles. It was supposed to cause an energy overload in the Gateway. The portal would have folded over on itself, creating a closed loop in space-time. It should have caused the wormhole to collapse."

Kevin, Bob, and Enzo looked at one another, then at the other Sawyer.

"This explains a few things," Bob said. "The overload. The particle buildup. It was all because of that."

"I traveled back in time to stop the Gateway experiment from being a success," the alternate Sawyer said, "but instead I caused the very history I was trying to change."

"The loop is complete," Bob said. "Our coming here was part of your history."

"But what about our history?" asked Enzo. "Our Mainframe? Our world-line? Where is it?"

"We'll figure that out, Enzo, I promise," said the alternate Sawyer. "There's my ship. We'll be safe in there."

He pointed across the parking area. The ship was black, and Kevin noticed it had a hull design similar to the Nighthawk. They quickly boarded and sealed themselves within. The _Relativity_ only had one chair, the pilot's seat. The rest of the inside space was empty. The four time-displaced travelers leaned against the cold metal walls of the time machine.

For a moment there was silence. Then Kevin said: "Maybe... it hasn't happened yet."

"What?" asked Bob.

"Enzo's question." Kevin turned to his other self. "The three travelers... us... what happened to us in your history?"

Sawyer thought for a few seconds. "Welman told me they disappeared from the university. He always assumed they'd ran away and hid somewhere in Mainframe. To my knowledge they were never found. You just... vanished."

"We just vanished..." Kevin's voice trailed away.

"What are you thinking, Kevin?" asked Enzo.

"Maybe we're not out of luck," Kevin said. "We participated in a causal loop, us four. Maybe we can complete another causal loop."

"What? You mean there's another one?" asked Enzo.

"There has to be, don't you see? Our reality still exists, but we have to participate in its history the same way he..." he pointed to his double, "participated in his by bringing us here."

"What's the plan, Kevin?" Bob asked.

"This is a time machine. We can go back again and use the particle beam. Instead, this time we can use it to direct the portal to another location."

"What good will that do?" asked the other Sawyer.

"It will reestablish our history," said Bob, snapping his fingers. "In our world-line Welman succeeded as well, but there is no Gateway Network. Instead of trying to collapse the portal we can divert it to where it's supposed to go and bring our history back."

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Kevin said.

"We'll have to modify the file lock," said the alternate Sawyer. "I don't have any tools with me to do the job."

Bob raised his left hand. "We've got Glitch," he said. "Kevin, can you and... Kevin modify the file lock to redirect the portal to the Supercomputer?"

"Using Glitch? Sure. It might take us a while."

"We'd better get out of here then," said the other Kevin Sawyer. "This ship has a civil identification transponder, but it won't be long before the authorities figure out there's one more vehicle in Mainframe than there was this morning."

"Where are we going to go?" asked Bob.

"Back in time again," said Sawyer as he strapped himself into the pilot seat once again. "I'll take us back twelve milliseconds so we'll have enough time to rewire the file lock."

His hands flew over the controls, pushing buttons and flipping switches like an expert pilot. Within nanoseconds they were high in the sky and then blackness surrounded them.

The _Relativity_ landed in Floating Point Park. The trip only took a few nanoseconds, but in reality they had moved backwards in time twelve milliseconds before the experiment was scheduled to commence. The two Sawyers set about disassembling the hyperspace file lock using Glitch as a handy multitool while Bob and Enzo walked around outside.

For the sake of simplicity, the alternate Sawyer opted to go by his shared middle name, Taylor. It was confusing enough for him to be interacting with another version of himself without having to worry about names.

"So," said Kevin, "you've been trapped in Mainframe?"

"Yeah," Taylor replied. "My retrieval module was destroyed in a battle when a bunch of viruses invaded the Principal Office."

"How did you manage?"

"It wasn't easy. The Mainframers would have killed me right after I exited the Gateway if it hadn't been for Welman. I convinced them I was a scientist involved in a teleportation experiment, but it just didn't wash with Welman. He did some analysis of his own and figured out I was a user."

"What about the people? What are your Matrix and AndrAIa like?"

"I don't know who those people are," replied Taylor.

Kevin looked surprised. "I guess the variance between our realities is bigger than I thought."

"Your Enzo seems pretty similar to mine. Is he dating Zoë Mathis by any chance?"

"No. I don't think so. Then again, your Enzo is my Matrix. I'm assuming, of course, your Enzo doesn't have a younger copy."

"Are you saying that's what Enzo is? A backup?"

"Yep."

"Geez," Taylor said. "Things between us really are different."

"You might be surprised. Mainframe was nearly destroyed in a war with a virus named Megabyte. Don't suppose you ever heard of him, either." Taylor shook his head. "Be glad. That guy nearly knocked me out of a car in mid-flight."

"Sounds like you've got some stories yourself."

Kevin chuckled. "You'll never guess who I ran into a month ago, and in Mainframe, too. Martin MacDonald."

"You're joking."

"No. He released Daemon into the Supercomputer as a ploy to market his immune operating system software."

"Are you for real?"

"If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'."

"I can't believe it, but then again it's not surprising when I think about it. He always was..."

"Sinister?"

"I was going to say unstable, but yeah, sinister works too. It seems everything prior to the Gateway Command experiment is exactly parallel," Taylor stated. "In your reality the Gateway Command was a success, but there were no three travelers like in my history and there was never a Gateway Network."

Kevin handed Glitch to Taylor. The keytool had morphed into a laser spanner. The two scientists were busily reordering the microcircuits.

"Okay, the power source has been disconnected," Kevin said.

"Now we have to modify the spin of the particle beam from -1/2 to 1," Taylor explained as he aimed the keytool at a collection of relays. "That will create a beam of virtual gravitons."

"We'll have to figure out a way to direct the portal to a specific system."

"I'm already ahead on that. We can use components from the navcom to build a makeshift navigational array. So in your reality, what happened after the demonstration?"

Kevin did not want to lie. He desperately wanted to tell him the truth, that the Gateway transported a virus into Mainframe's Twin City which caused a colossal explosion that nullified thousands. He knew that soon he would have blood on his hands, he and Bob and Enzo. What was worst, they would all have to send Taylor to his unwitting grave to do it.

Outside, Enzo paced around the ship. Bob remained motionless, leaning against the hull. Enzo, finally aggravated beyond his limits, uttered a curse and left the immediate premises.

Bob walked after him in pursuit. "Where are you going?" he asked.

"Away. I need to think." Enzo's tone was one of seething anger. He was hurt, and Bob knew there was very little he could say or do to help alleviate his mounting grief. "Enzo, you know we have to do this."

"I know that," he shouted, stopping suddenly and turning to face his mentor. Enzo was furious, his face contorted in an expression of anger and fear. "I don't have to like it," he continued venomously.

"Enzo, if we try to change things we'll only make the future worse. We already know what would have happened if your dad succeeded. Do you really want that future?"

Enzo hesitated for a moment, then shook his head slowly, his face downcast, eyes closed as if in pain. "I don't understand how all this can be real. Why does it have to be us?"

"It just is," said Bob. "I'm sorry, Enzo."

Enzo finally looked up and faced the Guardian. "We're going to kill them all," he said. "We have to destroy the Twin City! My friends, my life before..."

He broke down into uncontrollable sobbing. Enzo may have been 18 hours old physically, but his heart was still that of a ten-hour-old boy, and that young heart was in torment. To return to the future they left behind meant they would have to knowingly cause the explosion that destroyed Mainframe's Twin City.

It would mean the genesis of Megabyte and Hexadecimal. It would mean the death of a father, the death of a childhood for Dot; it meant the Web for Bob, and hours of wandering across cyberspace for two small sprites. It was the most unfair thing fate could possibly pull on them. Despite the existence of parallel timelines, of other-whens and what-ifs, they were still destined to birth the very future that birthed them.

As Kevin Sawyer would later explain, fate had conspired to bring them all to this point in time and space. Taylor had traveled back in time and unwittingly caused the very history he was trying to divert when he unwittingly brought the three of them into an alternate past reality. From that point forward, the history known to Taylor would unfold exactly as he knew it. However, for every possible event in history there existed an infinite number of possible outcomes. Kevin, Bob, and Enzo represented a possible future reality, real to them, but hypothetical to Taylor. In order to return to the life they knew, they would have to cause their own history the same way Taylor had caused his.

* * *

Why Bob allowed this, he had no idea. It was dangerous enough to be this far from the ship, but Enzo had asked, and Bob was enough of an emotional wreck himself to indulge him. They were outside Enzo's old school, standing across the street at a bus stop. The final bell had just rung, and a flood of young sprites came pouring out of the front doors. Some were piling into yellow buses, others were being picked up by their parents. Such was the case with little Enzo Matrix, only instead of his father his big sister Dot pulled up to the curb and waited.

Strange as it seemed, Bob was tempted to walk over and talk to her. She looked so... amazing. Her long bangs were still tye-dyed, her lips were painted in a soft pink lipstick, her cheek was dusted with glittery makeup, and her pink dress accentuated her young figure. It was then Bob remembered this was not his Dot, at least not yet. His Dot was in the future, in a reality which might or might not come to be.

The Guardian felt a pang of guilt knowing that, in order to get back to her, he would have to knowingly help destroy the Twin City. Not for the first time, Bob wanted to do something to spare her and Enzo from the terror and heartbreak of losing their father. Deep down he knew there was nothing he could do. The explosion created Megabyte and Hexadecimal, and without Hex, Daemon would never be defeated and that would lead to Taylor's future. That could not be allowed.

The Temporal Protocol asserted itself, and Bob forced his feelings back into his deepest recesses. He knew now why time travel was so dangerous. The temptation to alter things was almost more than he could bear. Bob patted Enzo on the shoulder. It was time to leave.

When they returned to the ship, they found the two Sawyers ready with their modified hyperspace file lock.

"We had to remove a few circuits from the navigational computer," said Taylor. "But the file lock now has the ability to redirect the Gateway portal to any system whose coordinates we enter."

The file lock had been wired onto a square circuit board with an LED screen and a makeshift pad of numbered buttons. Kevin handed Glitch back to Bob, who reattached the keytool onto his arm.

"In our world-line the portal connected to the Supercomputer," Bob said. He took the file lock and programmed the necessary coordinates into the device. He handed it back to Taylor.

Kevin spoke next. "Remember, we're part of another time loop now. This is our history we're writing. When you enter the university, you won't see the earlier version of yourself that brought us here. If we are a part of our history now then the causal relationship that spawned your universe is no longer relevant."

"Let's hope so," said Taylor. "We've still got almost nine milliseconds. We can skip ahead in the ship."

And skip ahead they did. This journey was much more intense since the navcom was working on bypassed components. The team was jostled violently as they traveled from past to future. The ship landed outside the university nine milliseconds later after making a fifteen nanoseconds' jump across time.

"You take the file lock," Bob said. "It might look suspicious if the two of you walk in there. We'll stay here with the timeship until you get back."

Taylor nodded and headed toward the walkway, unknowingly to his death.

Enzo slammed his fist against the hull of the timeship after he had gone. "This isn't right!"

"Do you think we feel any different?" asked Bob. "This has to be done, Enzo."

"We didn't even tell him the truth," the youth continued. "He thinks he's going to walk out of there alive and processing."

"He wouldn't have done it willingly," said Kevin.

"I guess you'd know," Enzo said almost spitefully.

"Yes, I do know," Kevin replied plainly. "And I also know that I'd rather it be him than any one of us. Now listen, we don't have a lot of time here. I suggest we get in this thing and get back to our future. If everything goes right we should arrive back in our reality."

Sawyer took the pilot's seat while Bob secured the hatch. Sawyer manipulated the controls and got the craft airborne. He was not as familiar with the workings of the _Relativity_ as his counterpart, Taylor, but he proved to be adaptable and soon had them high in the sky. Taylor had shown him some rudimentary principles when they disassembled the navcom. The coordinates were a combination of spatial and temporal factors. The destination was defined by pre-calculated functions already programmed into the computer. Kevin imputed the proper coordinates and the computer took over. Blackness consumed them once again.

* * *

Taylor took his previous seat. Like his counterpart said, there was no sign of his earlier self. This was an entirely new world-line. He could see the end of this nightmare finally in sight.

"System detected," Welman Matrix said. "Executing Gateway Command."

Kevin Taylor Sawyer aimed the hyperspace file lock at the Gateway and fired the beam. A white light suffused the portal, and Welman's control board shorted out.

A voice called out from the portal. "I am GIGABYTE!"

 _KABOOM_

* * *

"Commander Matrix, we've got reports of a downed transport in Kits Sector. It just came out of nowhere."

"Don't bother me with this right now," Dot shouted. "Begin evac procedures. Get everyone out of the Principal Office!"

The explosion jerked her attention back to the vidwindow. A bright white flash engulfed Bob, Enzo, and Kevin. The whole building shook with the released energy of the Gateway portal. Lights flickered, pulses race, and Dot screamed helplessly.

"Bob!" she screamed.

Dot fully expected to delete any nano. Her mind was filled with images from the Twin City, a wave of energy rippling through the system, destroying everything in its path. To her surprise, nothing happened. The vidwindow went to static for a few nanos, then returned to its image of the Core Room. The Gateway Command stood intact and inactive. The room seemed undamaged by the energy discharge. There was only one problem: Bob, Kevin, and Enzo were gone.

"What happened?" Dot asked.

"We are still processing," Phong said. "Oh, thank the user."

"I need a status report," Dot said. "Where are they? Dad?"

"I... I don't know," said Welman. "They were caught in the blast radius. It's possible they were... that they..." His voice trailed off. User, what had gone wrong?

"Dad," Dot said, "could they have survived?"

"Commander Matrix," said a CPU troop. "That transport that crashed, it has survivors."

"Phong, take care of this," Dot said. "Our main priority is finding out what happened to our people."

"But ma'am," persisted the troop, "it's them. They're the ones who crashed. They're already on their way over here."

* * *

It took Kevin a moment to regain his equilibrium. The jolt of the crash had knocked his senses off-kilter. As he focused his vision through the cockpit, he was able to tell they had crash-landed in Kits.

He heard a groan from behind. "Everybody still breathing?" asked Sawyer.

"Yeah," said Bob. "No thanks to your brilliant piloting skills. I thought you said you could fly this thing."

"I did the best I could," said Kevin. Piloting the time machine was difficult without the help of the navcom.

They used the side hatch to exit the craft. There were already several squadrons of CPUs cordoning off the crash site.

"This is Mike the TV coming to you from the scene of a horrible transport crash in Kits Sector. Just moments ago, an unidentified flyer crash-landed not a hundred yards from the Eight Ball Apartments building... Wait, the pilots are alive. Get a close up, get a close up!"

Bob, Kevin, and Enzo were approached by a CPU squadron commander. "Sir," said the binome to Bob, "what in the Net happened?"

"It's a long story," said Bob. "We need to get to the Principal Office right now."

Microseconds later a CPU patrol unit landed at the front steps of the Principal Office. The three journey-worn time travelers climbed the steps and entered the main hall. They were greeted by Dot, Welman, Phong, and the others.

At the sight of his father in his nullsuit, Enzo broke down in tears and ran to his father, embracing him.

"I'm sorry!" he cried. "I'm so sorry!"

"What is it, son?" Welman asked. "What happened to you?"

Bob held Dot tightly, pulled back slightly and kissed her forcefully on the lips.

"Bob," she asked, "what's happened? You just disappeared out of the Core Room a few nanos ago."

"We've been traveling," Kevin said. He turned and looked out upon the shining city of Mainframe. "Looks like my idea worked. Funny. I almost wish it hadn't."

By the end of the second everyone knew all there was to know: the time loop, the interference from the other reality, the truth about the Twin City Explosion. All was laid bare. The other Sawyer was now dead, nullified in the explosion. He had been the reason the portal locked onto the Supercomputer in the first place, and it could not have been done without them.

It would be some time before anyone could understand the implications of what happened. For now, all was forgiven. They had blood on their hands, but it was history, and it was the past. Given the alternative, no one could complain. However, that did not alleviate the emotional strain they had been through.

Kevin stood on the steps of the P.O. staring contemplatively over the city when Enzo walked up beside him.

"How are you holding up?" asked Kevin.

"Better," said the teen. "You?"

"I'm trying to figure out if what I did constitutes a form of suicide."

Enzo shook his head, not amused. "I can't understand how you can be so cold about this."

"If I seem cold it's because I'm trying to reconcile with myself. This whole thing has made me sick."

"Ditto."

Silence.

"Which one is real? Which version of history, I mean."

"They're both equally real, Enzo. I can give you a perfectly reasonable scientific answer, but I don't think it would do you any good. All I can tell you is that time and space are a real bitch."


	5. Epilogue

EPILOGUE

"They did it," said Pythias. "I knew Sawyer would come through."

"He did perform remarkably well, didn't he?" Hexadecimal added. "I must say, I'm rather impressed with the good doctor."

They saw the loop, contorted as it was, intertwining with the other timeline. It was finished. The cycle was complete, and as expected they did not have to lift a finger.

"Bob sent the time machine as far into the future as it could reach," said Pythias. "I've already brought it here. It will be safe until the time comes."

"Good," said Hexadecimal.

"You know, this whole thing has got me thinking," said Pythias. "Time can loop back on itself, meaning the future can write its own past; it seems things are predestined to happen, even with parallel realities thrown into the mix."

"Oh, please don't bore me with questions of free will," said Hexadecimal. "If I believe anything, it's that chaos will triumph over order. Look, we could have interfered any time we wanted, if whether to help close the loop or detract it."

"So we're the only ones with free will in all of this?"

"There was always a probability that Sawyer would have chosen not to send his other self to his death. There's a parallel reality out there where he made a different choice, where he saved his double. Of course, that's not the one we're interested in. No, everyone has free will; they just don't appreciate it enough. At least, that's how I see it."

"So why did Sawyer make his decision if it was not predestined by the loop?"

"Simple. Sawyer believes in fate. It is as simple as that. In his mind he pictured the loop, intertwining with other realities, but a loop nonetheless, where events seemed to conspire to write the future in a certain way. If he truly believed in free will, he would have stopped everything and broken it, in which case we would have had to intervene, but luckily he didn't. I image he's going to lose a lot of sleep over this."

"They all will. Especially Enzo. The grief the poor boy is feeling now. It must be intolerable."

"I know you want to help him. I do too. Enzo is very dear to me, but it was necessary for him to experience this. He and Sawyer will have to be ready before the final battle, and the time is close at hand."

Pythias paused before asking his next question. "Do you really think we can do this?"

Hex replied, "Do you think we really have a choice?"

Pythias chuckled. "I'll pretend you didn't just ask that. So what happens next?"

"Peace for a little while," Hex said wistfully. "Then another accident, if you can imagine. This one we can sit out, though. We need to turn our attention on the invaders."

Pythias concentrated for a moment. "They're waiting for instructions from their user. Then they attack another Net system called Spirit 7. It's an old system. All its inhabitants are slaughtered like the last two. I wish we could see outside cyberspace. It would give us an idea as to who is behind this."

"That's not important right now," Hex said. "It's about time we gave Niven a push in Allison Green's direction. You know what to do."

Pythias nodded, then peered back into the eternity that was cyberspace.


End file.
